Vic3 won't leave its beta state until it removes/reworks the construction sectors.

[miov01]

The construction sectors are a placeholder mechanic meant to make the player try to game the system so to not notice the lack of depth in other more meaningful mechanics.

I believe its existence is counter-productive to the game development. I propose that construction points are scaled based on other industrial capabilities of nations. For example here is a mod made way back on game release which replaces sectors with urban centers. https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=2888185909

Edit: Construction sectors could have some sense for totalitarian regimes. But even then the current system fails to take any kind of consequence for distance between lands and so on.

 

[MohawkWolfo98]

I find the idea of removing construction sectors intriguing. I’m not sure about the historical authenticity about construction sector, neither do I like the fact that with this mechanic there is only one clear way of growing ur country.

Tying it to urban centres as the mod in theory does though sounds good but because it’s so difficult to control how much is employed at urban centres, players might complain that they find it hard to grow and expand the economy.

In this game, construction = GDP growth, and I think players might find it abit too much that they can’t control it or can’t explain why they wild swings of GDP as people leave the urban centres etc. That being said, ideas about removing construction sectors are great.

 

[Idle America]

Friendly reminder that "it's" means "it is".

 

[MatthewP]

It seems like the big difference would be, you can have a situation where the government or private sector has a bunch of money sitting around, with plenty of resources and profitable ways to invest it, and just can’t do so and instead has to sit on the money. That seems like a pretty bad problem to add. What are the advantages that compensate?

 

[Rusarg]

I came to the forum after a long time just to post the same idea!

'Construction sectors' as they are right now should only exist under a totalitarian government form.

I think the developers understand that, but the problem is that this "placeholder mechanic" is actually one of the core mechanics to balance the game economy/development (just as the 'Machine Tools' were in Vicky 2 at the start of each game) and until they find an alternative solution it will unfortunately stay.

Considering the extremely complex nature of the economic simulation and the interdependency of the game mechanics I don't believe in a simply and fast solution.

 

[Klatz-Klatz]

that's right, but the game has already been created as it is and no one will redo the fundamental mechanics with a 99.99% probability, the game initially went this way, so we need to be realistic and offer something that is REAL. Within the framework of exactly the product that we currently have. There will be no armies in vic3 by the type of individual units as in other paradox games (there will be only conditional fronts), you will need to build houses (the only question is how it will be). Ask and offer something realistic, and for all the incredible ideas you will have to wait for vic 4 (where, with hope for the best, the developers will at least share the concept of the original vision of the game with the community) because they make DLC for this initial concept and if the concept fails, then the game will be imperator rome at the very beginning of the path

 

[prismaticmarcus]

that's right, but the game has already been created as it is and no one will redo the fundamental mechanics with a 99.99% probability, the game initially went this way, so we need to be realistic and offer something that is REAL. Within the framework of exactly the product that we currently have. There will be no armies in vic3 by the type of individual units as in other paradox games (there will be only conditional fronts), you will need to build houses (the only question is how it will be). Ask and offer something realistic, and for all the incredible ideas you will have to wait for vic 4 (where, with hope for the best, the developers will at least share the concept of the original vision of the game with the community) because they make DLC for this initial concept and if the concept fails, then the game will be imperator rome at the very beginning of the path

I understand what you're saying but there's nothing wrong with throwing ideas out there. PDS have been known to completely overhaul games (well, Stellaris) from top to bottom before.

So keep those ideas coming, I say.

 

[McSaucy4418]

I'm actually supportive of replacing construction centers with a local construction good produced by urban centers but the title of this thread is so ridiculous it's almost guaranteed to derail any potentially productive discourse.

 

[Searry]

Quite frankly I find it rather dull how you start each game by knowing you have to start building the steel industry after you get your innovation cap sorted. Taking away even more player control from the economy combined with this sort of thing would make it better. Then you give the player more control depending on the amount of urban centers/whatever you decide on gradually as the nation industrializes. Currently the game is still a command economy simulator which doesn't really fit into this kind of a game.

 

[Sbrubbles]

I find the idea of removing construction sectors intriguing. I’m not sure about the historical authenticity about construction sector, neither do I like the fact that with this mechanic there is only one clear way of growing ur country.

Tying it to urban centres as the mod in theory does though sounds good but because it’s so difficult to control how much is employed at urban centres, players might complain that they find it hard to grow and expand the economy.

In this game, construction = GDP growth, and I think players might find it abit too much that they can’t control it or can’t explain why they wild swings of GDP as people leave the urban centres etc. That being said, ideas about removing construction sectors are great.

Construction sectors are not anything particularly bizarre, they're just the people and companies employed in construction. These guys:

There's no reason there should be an arbitrary limit to how many people/companies are employed in construction. "Sorry, we can't build your factory today because our country only allows 10000 people to lay bricks at any one time".

If I were to say there IS a "construction sector bloat" problem, it's in the fact the governments are allowed to freely use taxpayer money for construction of private enterprises (I believe it should be severely restricted, penalized and depedant on laws), not in the existance of construction sector themselves.

 

[grommile]

Quite frankly I find it rather dull how you start each game by knowing you have to start building the steel industry after you get your innovation cap sorted.

Single-player strategy games will always be puzzles. (You don't have enough CPU to run a set of adaptive-reactive computer rivals of adequate quality.)

 

[Cassilda]

I don't see any particular problem with the "construction sector" mechanics as such, after all you can hire people for working as architects, civil engineers and builders.
In my own opinion, while Victoria 3 is enjoyable as a game, it fails to represent the fact that outside absolute governments and totalitarian dictatorships, "the state" shouldn't be involved at the local level in physically building industries or exploiting natural resources, especially with the typical lassiez-faire economic approach dominant in so many nations in the XIX century.
It still makes sense that a government runs its own arsenals for the army and the navy under some circumstances, but building food industries, farms, furniture manufactories and textile mills in a capitalist economy should be managed by the pops according to their capital reserves and the opportunities in the market.

 

[fr-rein]

Who will produce the cement and other details for the Construction? Even Victoria II had that.

That said, the speed of construction shouldn't be quite limited by the Construction buildings really. It should depend on the Urban Centers and Peasants.

 

[Leoreth]

I definitely think it's worth trying a system where construction sectors still exist, but are not constructed by the player. Instead construction is a fully localised resource (whether implemented as a good or not, I don't really care). Construction sectors would be automatically created similar to urban centers, but only according to local demand of construction points needed by ongoing construction. The state's urbanization stat could provide an upper limit to the number of construction sectors so you cannot randomly start building tons of buildings in underdeveloped states.

The game should be tuned more in such a way that it is beneficial to have a continuous, small number of construction sectors active in each state at the same time, rather than running none for some periods and a crazy number in other periods. This can be achieved by making the scaling up of construction sectors a slow process, and by balancing things such that an oversized construction sector creates a labour drain on other industries. If that was the case then much of the problems the designers try to "solve" with buildable construction sectors would address themselves.

I am not sure the game as designed is ready for that though - in my opinion what is missing here is that currently in the game it is too easy to convert peasants into labourers and there is generally little competition over labour until all peasants are "used up". I don't find that very realistic - in real life it was not always easy to integrate peasants into the industrial economy and it really only happened over time, and with the help of some government pressure.

On the other end, it would be easier to balance things out if pops "consumed" construction as well (which is where treating housing as a good would come in handy). Here the game is entirely lacking the concept of housing (and amenities in general) as a need and as a crucial counterpart to infrastructure on the population end.

In my opinion, the ideal solution would be to solve both problems with the same solution: add housing (or amenities) as a state wide stat analogous to infrastructure. Where infrastructure determines the limits on the movement of goods, housing determines the limits on the movement of people (from rural areas into urban centers). The more urbanization you have, the more housing you need in your state - if you fall below it, you proportionally limit the rate at which pops can convert from rural to urban pops (and also migrate into the state...). Building housing would both require construction, but existing housing would also passively consume construction points (upkeep etc), thereby provide a base need of construction points to maintain baseline viability of local construction centers.

 

[MohawkWolfo98]

Construction sectors are not anything particularly bizarre, they're just the people and companies employed in construction. These guys:

View attachment 1084889

There's no reason there should be an arbitrary limit to how many people/companies are employed in construction. "Sorry, we can't build your factory today because our country only allows 10000 people to lay bricks at any one time".

If I were to say there IS a "construction sector bloat" problem, it's in the fact the governments are allowed to freely use taxpayer money for construction of private enterprises (I believe it should be severely restricted, penalized and depedant on laws), not in the existance of construction sector themselves.

Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, I just feel that the government building these construction sectors, publically employing and paying the wages of these workers to build private enterprise is not historical - surely it was the private sector that did employ those workers in the picture to help build those skyscrapers? Until u have a planned economy, should it be the business of the state to employ and pay people to build private enterprises?

Instead, shouldn’t we be able to negotiate with business leaders to help improve wages of workers etc? Or not and risk revolution?

 

[Gundabadguy]

I definitely agree with the idea of local construction sectors since it doesn't make sense that a worker in London can build something just as easily in Wales as Kenya.

 

[miov01]

I came to the forum after a long time just to post the same idea!

'Construction sectors' as they are right now should only exist under a totalitarian government form.

I think the developers understand that, but the problem is that this "placeholder mechanic" is actually one of the core mechanics to balance the game economy/development (just as the 'Machine Tools' were in Vicky 2 at the start of each game) and until they find an alternative solution it will unfortunately stay.

Considering the extremely complex nature of the economic simulation and the interdependency of the game mechanics I don't believe in a simply and fast solution.

I edited the title since I didn't take into consideration how different types of governments can handle nation development.

 

[MatthewP]

I definitely agree with the idea of local construction sectors since it doesn't make sense that a worker in London can build something just as easily in Wales as Kenya.

its already easier for to do construction in places you have construction sectors. Maybe this should be increased. But changing it to “it’s completely impossible for a construction crew from one place to build something in another place” seems like a step backwards.

For that matter I’d say the concept of local goods is obsolete already. Now that MAPI exists, services and electricity (and maybe others) should have MAPI penalties instead. It’d be more realistic and also much better for gameplay since you don’t have to fiddle with power plants in literally every province.

 

[grommile]

It’d be more realistic and also much better for gameplay since you don’t have to fiddle with power plants in literally every province.

Although proofs of concept for long-distance AC transmission existed in the 1890s, the large capital projects to build major long distance power infrastructure didn't really get going until the late 1920s into the 1930s.

Before then, you really should need to build electrical capacity locally if you want to electrify an area.

 

[AmySavage]

I'd argue that when taking into account the era in question the construction sector mechanic isn't at all strange. We are talking of a period when most people weren't able to freely choose their occupation. The mechanic is clunky and I'd welcome a review of it, perhaps diversifying the inputs to drive up demand for basic products.
Localisation of construction is certainly a direction to consider, when combined with the autonomous investment mechanic already present it could alleviate the problem that was originally posted.
I hope that the more centrally led option will not be discarded however. Historically speaking during the 1800's you mainly built what you were told to build by the authorities, and if what you wanted to build was not what they wanted then you didn't get to do it, especially outside of the anglosphere.